6-4, 6-0 On Sunday in the final of the W&S Financial Open in Cincinnati, top-seeded 26-year-old # 12 Patty Schnyder, from Wangen, Switzerland, won the first US-based tourney of her career, defeating unseeded 25-year-old # 72 Akiko Morigami from Tokyo, Japan, 6-4, 6-0 (photos shown).Patty said: "When my game is on, it looks like this. It was definitely a lot of hard work this week. There were a lot of good players here." tourney storyAkiko said: "Patty obviously played great against me. She played very aggressive and was controlling a lot of the points. She was mixing it up well. She was putting balls high to my backhand, which I don't like, and was really playing a lot of different shots."
Patty and Akiko had played only once before, last year in the 1st round at Wimbledon, where Patty won by a similar score, 6-4, 6-1.

Meanwhile, in the final in Palermo, (where they have apparently had no cameras all week), the defending champ, 3rd-seeded # 33 Anabel Medina Garrigues of Spain, defeated 5th-seeded # 40 Klara Koukalova of the Czech Republic, 6-4, 6-0. Anabel had also won in Palermo in 2001; 3 of her 4 WTA singles titles have been won there. Klara and Anabel are now tied 2-2 in career matches.Anabel said: "Palermo is a good tournament for me; I feel at home... The match was not so easy, especially in the first set, I was down 4-2 but then I fought and I won the set." WTA storyKlara said: "I'm very happy to have been in the final. Anabel played very well and I was just a little tired... Now I will go to the US, playing in San Diego, Los Angeles, and preparing for the US Open."

Cincinnati:Patty Schnyder was born in Basel, Switzerland, and resides in Wangen when she has time away from the Tour, but has said she would like to move to Australia when she retires. Patty has now won 10 WTA singles titles, including the Gold Coast title earlier this year, in 16 finals. Patty wears adidas and bats left-handed with a Head Liquidmetal Prestige MP racket, a 27" bat with a 98 sq" string area, weighing 11.9 oz strung, stiffness rating 63, balanced 8 points head light. Patty reportedly has her bats strung with 16-gauge Kirschbaum Super Smash Spiky, a polyester monofilament with a textured outer wrap.
Formerly coached by Hubert Choudury, Patty is now coached by her husband Rainer Hoffmann, an information technolgy specialist whom she married on December 5, 2003. When in Switzerland, Patty also sometimes has received training, along with her compatriot Martina Hingis, from Martina's mother, Melanie Molitor.Schnyder career record - Patty Schnyder Wallpaper

Born in Osaka & residing in Tokyo, Akiko Morigami was playing in her first WTA singles final (she has won 6 ITF singles titles, and 1 WTA doubles). Akiko wears Fila and swings a Yonex bat. Akiko started playing tennis at age eight; she is coached by Takefumi Sato.Morigami career record

The Cincinnati tourney is a wee bit odd, inasmuch as 32 ladies play for $170,000, and a few weeks later 64 men play at the same place, in a tourney run by the same folks, for $2,450,000. The men are paid, on average, over 7 times as much per person as the ladies. Apparently everyone ignores this because the tourneys are not simultaneous.
Also: there is no live scoring this week.

The main draw for Cincinnati had 8 seeds, with 2 1st-round byes. There were 4 qualifiers and 3 wild cards in the main draw. Qualifying finals were on Monday.The time in Ohio is UCT (GMT, Zulu, Greenwich...) minus 4 hours. That is Eastern Daylight Time in the US, =PDT +3 hours. Early round play began at 11am local time in 2004; in 2005 they started at 3:00pm.

Palermo:
22-year-old Anabel Medina Garrigues was born and resides in Valencia, where she did not begin playing tennis until the ripe old age of 12. She is now 4-3 in WTA singles finals (she has won 6 ITF singles titles). Anabel wears fashions by the adi dassler company and chops with a Head axe. Anabel once said she prefers hard courts (she may have changed her mind about that by now), and that her favorite shot is her backhand down the line. Anabel is coached by Gonzalo Lopez.Medina Garrigues career record

23-year-old Klara Koukalova was born and resides in Prague. Klara is now 1-6 in WTA singles finals; she won her first last month in s'Hertogenbosch (she has won 5 ITF singles titles). Klara wears Lacoste togs and has switched from a Wilson to a FischerPro Tour FT axe. She is a baseliner, used to prefer clay courts, but now favors grass, and likes her backhand. Klara is coached by David Kunst.Koukalova career record

The main draw for Palermo had 8 seeds, with NO 1st-round byes. There were 4 qualifiers and 2 wild cards in the main draw. Qualifying finals were on Monday.The time in Italy is UCT (GMT, Zulu, Greenwich...) plus 2 hours. That is 9 hours ahead of PDT in the US, 6 hours ahead of EDT. Early round play began at 3pm Monday, then at 4pm local time.

Caroline has won 8 ITF juniors titles since 2003, and was 2-2 in Fed Cup play this year, but it was her first match in a WTA Tour event. Caroline said: "It was nice playing on Center Court, against the No.12 in the world. [Patty] is a very good player and was forcing me to play her game... It was a good experience for me, and it showed me that I need to keep working and improving my game, and that my time will come." story

Patty said: "Normally, we know the player and have seen the way they play. It's sort of an unknown when you face someone like this. You have to be more careful at the beginning and see what they are going to do... [Caroline] was rallying with me and she has a good serve. Her game is there.
"I'm playing awesome this year. I've had some great results and really want to keep it that way. I look forward to keep it going, and we'll see how my ranking looks at the end of the year."

Daniela said: "It was exactly the way I wanted it to be... I felt like I controlled the match from the beginning and I'm very happy with the win."
About working to get back into the upper ranks of WTA players, former top-5 Daniela said: "I'm so hungry to get back there right now... I want to prove to everyone, including myself that I can do it and show everyone where I belong." story

It was only the third match Chanda has played since September, 2004: she had surgery on her left knee last autumn, and has still been plagued by knee problems since then.Chanda said: "It's been a long time since I've felt this good. My game is still in the building process, but I started off the week okay... I'm still not 100 percent yet, but I'm getting there. It's going to take some matches before I can see where things are at and to see how well I recover after each match. But I feel like I can continue to get stronger as the tournament goes on." story

Jessica said: "I started out well and then we had a short rain delay. When we came back on court, [Kristina] started playing a lot better, going for her shots and I just couldn't keep up... It was very exciting to play in the stadium. I first came here after winning the national clay court under 12s and I was introduced to the crowd. It was a very special moment for me. The crowd tonight was fantastic. They gave me a lot of better. I hope to come back next year and do better." story

Patty said: "[Aiko] really pushed me to a good level there. She made me play my best shots."

*#72 Akiko Morigami JPN d #15 s2 Vera Zvonareva RUS 6-3, 6-2 Thu

Akiko Morigami

Akiko plays 2-handed on both sides, but her forehand is the stronger shot. Akiko said: "I like to hit my forehand. It's one of my weapons. So everybody doesn't want to hit to my forehand... Today I was playing aggressive, because I have to play aggressive against Vera. If I play defensive, she's going to kill me. If I made mistakes, I didn't care. I just went for it." story
Vera double-faulted on set point to lose the 1st set. Vera said: "Maybe I was a little frustrated, because I didn't use my chances at 3-all and 5-3 down when I was serving. I had easy unforced errors and kind of gave her a couple games so she was able to win the first set."

#19 s3 Jelena Jankovic SCG d #123 q Sybille Bammer AUT 6-3, 7-5 Thu

Jelena Jankovic

Jelena led 5-1 in the 2nd set, then Sybille won 4 straight games to even the score. Jelena said: "I thought the match was almost finished, then all of sudden she started fighting. I pulled it together and finished the match out, but it could have gotten worse and gone to a third set. I was like, 'Why are you doing this? Can't I finish the match? I want to get off the court.'" story

#25 s4 Daniela Hantuchova SVK d #124 Chanda Rubin USA 6-2, 7-5 Wed

Daniela Hantuchova

Although Chanda was playing only her 4th match of a year in which she has been recovering from knee injury and surgery, Daniela was impressed by Chanda's play. Daniela said: "My serve felt good and it was consistent tonight. My serve had to be good against a player like Chanda, who is a very aggressive player and returns the ball well... I just tried to stay upbeat and positive and focus on every point. She played good shots and every game seemed to be close... When I was up 2-0 in the second set, she started to get more aggressive, and I was also surprised by how much she was coming to the net." story

Chanda led 5-3 in the 2nd set, then Daniela won 4 straight games to finish the match. Chanda said: "I had a few chances, but I chucked those. I lost focus a little bit, and I probably wasn't as aggressive as I wanted to be. [Daniela] was hitting balls, and I wasn't getting on them. That's not something you should do to close out a set... This is the match I need to win to get to where I want to go. I'm disappointed not getting through it."

*#67 Shahar Peer ISR d #32 s6 Ai Sugiyama JPN 5-7, 7-6(6), 6-4 Wed

Shahar Peer

Rain delayed the start of the match (2nd of the day) for 78 minutes.

Ai said: "I started good there. I don't know. My spirit was going, and [Shahar] was pumped up at the end of the third set. I made unforced errors and easy mistakes...
"I didn't have a good start to the season. I've tried to get into my rhythm, but it's not 100 percent. I like hard-court season, so hopefully I can put everything together."

One of Patty's serves was a 117 mph ace,the fastest recorded serve of her career

Patty, now 36-13 for 2005, has the 3rd most wins in the WTA so far this year (behind Davenport & Sharapova). Neither player could held serve for the first six games of the match. Patty said: "I don't know why we had so many breaks in the first set, because I'm usually really good at holding my serve. We had a lot of rallies and I was happy to keep coming back from a break down. I was happy with the tie-break. I just stuck to my game plan and kept trying to make [Shahar] work and it paid off." story

It was Bethanie's first career win over a top-20 player. About the 0-6 2nd set, Bethanie said: "That second set went by so fast. I knew how to correct what I was doing. The third set was a new set. I just took it one point at a time. I really focused on hitting through the ball and going forward." Post story

Jelena said: "[Bethanie] serves and volleys and makes a shot that she can make one in a million. Something out of nowhere. Today, I couldn't do it. All the credit to her. She was the better player today... the beginning of the third set, when I was up 40-love on my serve and lost that game-- I let down and started playing badly again." Enquirer story

Daniela said: "It was tough... Especially with the heat, it's not fun to be there for another two hours and trying to get through the match. The conditions were really difficult... The first set, I had so many chances that I didn't get. Maybe I was just trying to go for too much and making too many mistakes. The important thing was to hang in there in the second set and hold my serve and try to use my opportunities to break [Yoon]. In the third set, I felt like I was in much better shape than her. She was getting tired, and I tried to control the third set. I felt very good at the end." Enquirer story - Post story

*#72 Akiko Morigami JPN d #70 Sania Mirza IND 6-4, 6-3

Akiko Morigami

Akiko will play Daniela Hantuchova in a semifinal on Saturday. About the way Daniela played when she reached the top-5 in 2002, Akiko said: "I personally thought [Daniela] was taking the ball early back then. Now she's waiting up a little bit. Whenever you have a chance, you've got to go for it ... so you want to take the ball early and be aggressive...
"She's very competitive and focused. She always has a good serve, so I'll have to have a good return game." story

Patty said: "[Bethanie] was hitting high balls to my backhand, and I figured out where she was serving, mostly to my backhand. She was struggling a bit there, so I gave her tougher shots to play... Once I had a little time out there, I felt good. Sometimes I was taking some speed off the ball and sometimes I was using some spin. My serve also felt good." Enquirer story - tourney story

Bethanie said: "I wasn't as sharp as I had been in previous matches. Patty mixed it up a bit and forced me out of my game. That, along with playing six matches already. That really took a lot out of me."

*#72 Akiko Morigami JPN d #25 s4 Daniela Hantuchova SVK 6-4, 6-4

Akiko serving, Daniela returning, and Akiko after match point

There was a 25 minute delay in the 1st set when the center court lights went out, and the match was moved to the grandstand court.

Akiko said: "My serve helped me a lot today. I was hitting a good spot on important points... It's a great feeling to be in my first final. I'm very excited... I really have nothing to lose. Patty is a great player. I'm just going to go out to the court and find a way to win."

Daniela was upset by bad line calls late in the 1st set. Daniela said: "That was just ridiculous. It's tough to play when someone takes two balls away from you. Some of the calls were just too much today. Once the point is over, it's over, but it's really frustrating, because it breaks your rhythm. I felt like I was getting into the match, but a couple of those really crucial calls cost me the set." Enquirer story
However, Daniela said: "[Akiko] definitely was really aggressive, going for her shots and making them. I wasn't very aggressive, didn't do much with the ball. She definitely deserved to win today."